Horrible Idea Cover

Buy it here (soft cover)
and here (hard cover).

Picture yourself crawling over the railing of a bridge over a deep gorge, standing on a ledge narrorer than your shoes, hooked to a bungee chord, and summoning the courage to jump. At that moment you are probably thinking, horrible idea. Whose idea was this? Why did I listen to them? Do I really need this in your life? Yes, you do, and you jump. That was us. This was a horrible idea, but we needed it in our lives, and we jumped.

A few comments from fans and readers:

"Great work! I loved every minute of reading it. I felt like I was there in the car with you." - Kyler Norman

"Congratulations to the duo! And also the Tinyvette, the tiny car with a big heart." - Ken Schumm

"Congratz!!!! I got way more wrapped up in this than made any sense. I don't even own an Opel yet and there I was at work this morning hitting refresh every five minutes. - Kevin McEnhill

"My God, you just keep thinking of interesting creative ways to hit yourself over the head with a hammer, don't you?" - Jay Lamm

 

Horrible Idea

By Mike Meier and Don Michaelson

Copyright 2018
188 pages, 40 illustrations
ISBN: 9781388303402 (soft cover, Blurb)
ISBN: 9781388303082 (hard cover, Blurb)

This story is not about making motoring history. It's not about a fantasy car and it's not even about impressing our friends. It's about deciding this "horrible idea" was a good idea, then going for it.

I decided I was going to do a Cannonball Run in the Tinyvette, so I told friends about it and they said I was nuts and they were envious. Then Don joined the project and we started scheming.

The Tinyvette is a race car that competes in the 24 Hours of Lemons. Being a race car it is pretty spartan, and being an Opel GT it is pretty small. With barely enough room for two people and a few tools we took off on our adventure in mid-November. With no heater in the car and nightime temperatures as low as 12°F, driving nonstop day and night, freezing and then thawing on a 24 hour cycle, the engine constantly ringing in our ears, and our tails being tortured by the hard race seats, it was indeed an adventure, the likes of one we can't wait to do again.

Over and done, we had completed a double‐cannonball, leaving California in the Tinyvette on a Wednesday, grabbing a bagel in New York City on Saturday, and finally sharing a seafood dinner in Redondo Beach on Monday. Then we drove home, dusted the car off, and raced it at Sonoma Raceway. In all, 6,153 miles.

Below are links to a couple entries in the book.